Best I'd Ever Had
by winter machine
Summary: "Two months out of forty-four years. They shouldn't still mean this much." Addison appears on Mark's doorstep after finding out about Amelia's pregnancy. Post-episode for a few episodes back.


Rather out of date now, but picks up just after Amelia revealed her pregnancy to Addison. I had an image of Addison showing up at Mark's door and telling him the news, and this story was the result. Lyrics (and mood) from _Hey Jealousy, _by the Gin Blossoms. It's always struck me as a very Mark-and-Addison-somewhere-in-the-future song. Agree?

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**Best I'd Ever Had**

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_Tell me do you think it'd be all right __if I could just crash here tonight/You can see I'm in no shape for driving, and anyway I've got no place to go/And you know it might not be that bad/You were the best I'd ever had/If I hadn't blown the whole thing years ago I might not be alone..._

* * *

"Amelia's pregnant."

"Oh."

He pulls the door open wider, beckons her inside, and just like that, she slips right into his life again.

He orders food, encourages her to shower. Taking care of her like this comes as easily as sleeping with her: natural, frequent, and at the expense of figuring anything else out.

"Don't tell Callie I'm here. Or - anyone."

He shakes his head: he'll keep her secrets. She's always kept his, after all.

They eat Thai takeout and he asks her if she wants more satay instead of asking what she's doing here. Did she drive? Fly? These are details. She had nothing but an oversized purse with her and now a clean pair of his sweats and an ancient Harvard t-shirt cover the skin he shouldn't be thinking about. Her damp hair is longer than the last time he saw her. He likes it better this way but knows better than to say so. She smells like his soap and some shampoo that Lexie must have left here. He's slightly embarrassed about it but she seems too preoccupied to notice. They exchange pad thai instead of words; she tucks her feet up under her like she used to do in New York, when the three of them sagged into that awful futon to watch movies.

He's known her for twenty years. He allows himself a minute to feel the sheer weight of that before standing up, gathering empty cartons and sorting what's leftover.

"You want anything else?"

She doesn't answer.

"You want to ... talk about it?" An image of Amelia's pregnant belly floats before his eyes.

"I'm happy for her." Her eyes are shining in the low light, and she looks away before speaking again, so quietly that he has to ask her to repeat it.

"Do you think we could have made it?"

"Sorry?" He sets down a half-empty carton of rice, picks it up again to have something to do with his hands.

"Us. Do you think - if I had stayed in New York..."

She's looking out the window, not at him. Her shoulders slope softly like she's not even waiting for an answer. It's so like her - already accepting rejection before it's even come. There was a time he thought he could take it on, that he could keep her need from swallowing them both whole like he realized it had done Derek, but-

But it's too late for what-ifs now.

That's what he'd yelled at her as she packed, straight backed and furious, still wearing her wedding rings.

_It's too late! You'd rather chase a shadow than stay here and try for something real - _but she'd turned on him, furious, suitcase tight in the hand that bore her rings - _You don't know what 'real' is! _The door slammed and he could still taste the sick-sweet perfume, feel cheap satin between his fingers. Why had he done it? But it had been two months and Derek never left the middle of their goddamned bed, his presence a living thing between them until she couldn't take it anymore and _he _was the one who cheated? She cheated on him every day she curled over her phone, leaving him messages she thought he couldn't hear, when she twisted the diamond that wasn't forever around and around on her finger and refused to call a lawyer, when she cried with her back to him and told him to go to sleep.

But it wasn't the hurt he couldn't get over, when she left; it was everything else. Pain fades and what remains is quieter than hurt. Sadder. The crease at her mouth, the way her hands look the same. The shape of them - there's no reason they should make his breath catch in his throat, but they do.

They end up in bed.

Of course. Civilized, quieter than they're used to, almost adult. She's a little distant, still a little quiet, her eyes somewhat far away.

_If_ is a useless word and they cast it aside with his quilt.

They lie on their backs and he thinks of a Seattle hotel room, chilly and sparsely decorated. Their spaces were never the ones he thought she deserved: furtive nights in the Brownstone, stolen moments in on-call rooms. That depressing hotel. The unnatural brightness of her beach house - except he can't think about that without seeing the stalwart shape of her clavicle as she hugged her knees on the bed, the way it dipped and waited and watched him walk out of her life again.

The sheets are bunched now, useless.

There's a low siren hum from the street below, a horn. There are takeout containers cooling on his coffee table. There's a burst of freckles on her hip in the shape of ursa minor: the little bear. He was the only one to notice, she said the first time he pointed it out, but she wished for a sexier constellation. They'd laughed about it, gone up on his roof and tried to find something else that would fit. Looking at the fucking stars, who did they think they were?

He doesn't ask her anything else. Where here, why him, why now. Their history speaks for itself: they'll never be the ones who get the chances but she'll take them anyway. She's the brave one; his is just a front.

"Addison-"

"I know it's too late." Her voice is a whisper, half hidden in his pillow. Red hair tumbles across her face and automatically he brushes it back. Her cheek is warm and damp under his thumb, its curve achingly familiar. "But maybe there's - we could-" she breaks off.

He stills his hand. It seems wrong to touch her right now.

Two months out of forty-four years. They shouldn't still mean this much.

"If you asked me to stay-"

"If you don't want to go-"

They both fall silent.

Wordlessly, she presses her lips to his once again. It's faster this time, like they know it's going to end. He knows her body so well, still. She presses his fingers to the flat expanse of her stomach - pushing, hard, when he tries to pull away. He doesn't want to feel her emptiness but he does it anyway. The flesh moves slightly under his fingertips and she releases him. He closes his eyes then, traces the knobs of her spine from memory. The inch at the crook of her neck that makes her moan, that little span of softness between waist and hip. His hands mold to her.

She's crying. He pretends not to see, she never liked public displays of emotion, and traces each star in the constellation with his tongue instead. She sniffs, lets him.

Afterward he brings her a beer and she frowns. He shrugs, apologizes; if he'd known she was coming he would have had a bottle of wine she'd approve of. If he could have anticipated her he would have done a lot of things differently. That's what he tells himself, anyway. She seems to remember she's a surprise visitor and cracks open the beer quietly. A finger of mist wafts its way out of the top.

"This is disgusting." She slaps it down on the bedside table and he hopes she means the beer. Her gaze shifts to him, waiting.

He just looks at her, in his bed. So strange and yet so natural; they've always moved in and out of each other's lives in this way, gently shifting. There's more space between times now. Months without seeing her. A year, even. They've all moved on, surged forward, but here she is. They made their apologies and their amends, but her part is different. Maybe it always has been. And maybe her part of the story isn't over. But all he knows right now is that the scent of her skin between neck and shoulder is the same. That it's intoxicating, better than anyplace he could be. _We're not the kind of people who get the happy ending, are we - _she'd said this once, no question mark, in that big empty foyer. He didn't respond. Their shared past is lined with the words he didn't say, the questions she didn't ask, the things they couldn't talk about. Silence was their vow, avoidance their ceremony.

He's exhausted, and he thinks she must be too. He touches her shoulder, intending to suggest sleep, and she shakes her head.

She pinches the bridge of her nose then and he recognizes the gesture immediately - finals, cramped carrell, highlighter between her teeth. She's tired but she doesn't want to sleep. _If I close my eyes it's going to be morning and there won't be any time left._ It's all they've ever had, maybe: a series of nights, strung out like pearls - no, charms on a charm bracelet, because it could have ended anytime. Or before it began.

He kisses the delicate skin under her eyes. It's salty, and her lips are beer-sour and slightly downturned. Her pain is soft and exquisitely textured; it's the tongue stroking the length of his. He's sorry for everything that came before and after and here, in the moment. He's sorry that he only knows how to do this: taste her skin, lick the fluttering pulse at the base of her neck, fill the space that was never really his until she's writhing beneath him again. They won't talk about it. They won't talk about anything, and she'll leave no better off than she was before. He'll swallow his answer along with her moans and they'll cling to that silence until the next time.

His secret is that he's impotent in all the ways that actually matter.

She's gone when he wakes up in the morning. The bed still smells like her and he tells himself it's out of deference to her insecurities and not his that he speaks her name, anyway, when he walks into the empty kitchen.


End file.
